The Cure

House-made pâté may be a given, but a handful of Sydney restaurants are upping the
ante on the charcuterie board; making their own small-batch dry-cured meats on site.

Photography: Nikki To

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Photography: Nikki To

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Published on 15 April 2015

by Cleo Braithwaite

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Like all cooking, curing meats is about
creating something greater than the
sum of its parts. Most go through a
relatively similar process of curing in salt (and
sometimes sugar and herbs/spices) and then
hanging to dry out. With dry-cured meats
you’re usually aiming to lose 30 per cent of
their total weight before they’re ready to
serve. For chefs it’s about having complete
control over the details, from choosing the
best possible meat, to the mix of spices or
herbs to flavour it with, and how dry, firm and
aged the result.

For Luke Powell, chef/owner at LP’s
Quality Meats in Chippendale, it started
with a month-long stage (a chef term for a
learning-based stint at another restaurant) at
Upstate New York restaurant, Blue Hill. It was
there that Powell was exposed to the farm-totable
approach of butchering whole beasts and
turning them into charcuterie. For him, it was
a revelation. He told his chef mentor, “’This is
what I want to do, as much as possible’ ... [I]
just got a bit hooked.”

LP’s doesn’t have a designated curing
space. As a result, Powell explains, “A lot of our
charcuterie items are not just dry cured but
also cooked. We do belly hams, which we cure
in a ham brine. We do a bierwurst – which is
almost like a rustic, not-so-smooth mortadella,
using the Young Henrys Newtowner [beer].”
The team at LP’s has perfected its dry-cured
pork neck (coppa), a feat which Powell is most
proud of, given the limitations of its facilities.

Porteño head chef Marz Peita began experimenting with curing meats about two
years ago. “After we started mastering it,
we just thought that we’d change upstairs
completely and focus on charcuterie.”

A change in direction like that is not easy
when you consider prosciutto takes well over
a year to cure. “I’ve got four at the moment
that are hanging in the warehouse ... and
they’re still like a year and a half away from
finishing because they’re so big,” Peita laughs.
“They’re like my children! I go and check on
them every week and make sure they’re okay,
give them a bath.”

At Nomad on Foster Street in Surry Hills,
curing meat was part of the ambitious project
from the start. Head chef Jacqui Challinor
explains that to get a head start on charcuterie,
its meats, “Were in an off-site kitchen for
about a year beforehand.” The restaurant
houses a handsome, purpose-built glass curing
cabinet showcasing the goods.

Unlike many restaurants, Nomad has the
resources to do its own butchering, buying
in three whole pigs a week, using the bellies
and loins for the dinner menu, breaking down
the legs and shoulders for salumi and then the
bones for stock. “That was the whole idea of
the restaurant – using everything and doing
everything from scratch,” says Challinor.

For Brent Savage, though he’d played around
with it a little at Bentley Bar, it was when he and
business partner Nick Hildebrandt opened a
wine bar – Monopole – that he really started to
get serious about charcuterie. “I guess we were
big believers in only using it if it was better than what you could buy,” Savage says. “Better
is probably the wrong word; more authentic,
perhaps. And it’s a really interesting process
as to the control you have on the end result.”
Which means it was also a matter of trial and
error. But for Savage that’s just part of the
joy of charcuterie. “It’s very much a craft. It’s
about touching and feeling and being patient.”

Here are some interesting examples to try
around town.

Cured Duck Breast
At Monopole, Brent Savage cures Aylesbury
duck breast in a mix of salt, sugar and spices
including star anise, coriander and black
pepper. Before it’s completely cured it’s seared
on the skin side, adding a really dark flavour
to the cure. Then it’s hung for nine to 12 days.
The result is sweet, aromatic and earthy.

Coppa
Coppa is a delicate, whole-muscle, dry-cured
meat, made from pork neck. Luke Powell
cures his in salt and sugar, flipping regularly
to ensure an even cure. If it still feels a little
flabby he’ll leave it in there another day.
Next, it’s stuffed inside the beef bung (natural
intestinal casing). It’s then hung until it loses
30 per cent of its weight. At LP’s it’s served
with mustard, olives and pickled jalapeños.

Bresaola
Bresaola is whole-muscle, air-dried beef. It’s a
deep red wine colour and often one of the few
beef stars on a charcuterie platter. Marz Peita
uses Girello wagyu, usually from Blackmore
or Rangers Valley. He cures it in a salt/herb/
spice mix that includes rosemary and juniper.
It’s refrigerated and turned regularly in the
cure, then washed in red wine. Finally it gets
trussed up and hung for two to three weeks.
Peita gives them a regular misting with water
because although you’re looking to dry them,
if the outside dries out too much it’ll stop
releasing the moisture from the interior.

Wallaby and Juniper Salami
Nomad plays around with a number of meat/
flavour combinations with its salami, including
this wallaby and juniper example. It uses
Flinders Island wallaby rump which is minced
down with pork fat, then mixed with salt and
herbs/spices (juniper, pepper, garlic among
others). Then it’s pumped into lamb bungs
(a natural, long, narrow casing) and hung. It’s
ready to eat after about three weeks.